Regret
by AerisSerris
Summary: In the aftermath of the Chantry explosion, Katrina looks back on the past few hours, and how things could have possibly gone so wrong for her.


**Just a shitty drabble I wrote a while ago and decided to post on fanfiction.**

**Pairings: Katrina Hawke/Anders (rivalry romance)**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Dragon Age.**

**.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.**

The past few hours felt surreal.

Katrina could still scarcely believe what had happened. How had she not seen it coming? How had she not seen how far Anders's mind had fallen?

_It's because you were always so obsessed with your own, Kat._

Her lover - that is, former lover - had destroyed the Chantry in a fiery explosion, in direct view of Meredith, Orsino, and the rest of the world. He had killed countless people. By the Void, he had probably started a war! Katrina clenched her fists, biting her lip. She should have done something - anything - to stop him. She never should have helped him gather those ingredients and get into the Chantry. It was her fault they were all dead.

Meredith and Orsino had forced Katrina to choose between them, and what could Katrina do but side with the templars? They were the holy warriors of the Maker, after all. To oppose the templars would be to oppose the Maker, and this was one thing that nobody could make her do. Her faith was far too strong to allow anything to get in the way of that.

The Knight-Commander had then given Katrina the freedom to decide what to do with Anders. As soon as the Commander's back was turned,

_Katrina screamed, pushing Anders from his box onto the ground and tackling him. "How COULD you?!" She yelled, slapping him full in the face. Theirs was a romance filled with hatred and loathing, and their feuds had not been limited purely to verbal fights. They weren't strangers to bringing violence into their passion, their love and their hatred so closely intertwined that it was impossible to differentiate between the two. _

_There was no love now as she hit him. Her metal gauntlets, part of an ornate set of robes that had been specially crafted for the Champion of Kirkwall, left harsh marks on Anders's face, the sounds of her hits ringing throughout the air. "Hawke!" Aveline yelled in protest, though Katrina could not hear, clouded as she was by her rage._

_"YOU SON OF A BITCH!" She sobbed, her attacks ceasing as she settled for wrapping her fingers around his throat. "I should kill you, I should have killed you after you nearly killed that girl three years ago!"_

_"Then what's... stopping you... right now?" Anders said back up to her, his fingers meeting Katrina's. Her grip loosened around his throat. "Do it. Kill me. It's what someone likes me deserves, isn't it?" Kat didn't answer, but merely looking down at his chest, blinking back furious tears. "You've wanted to kill me for years. Do it."_

_"He wants to die. Kill him and be done with it." Fenris spoke up. The others spoke as well, but Katrina could hardly hear them._

He wants to die.

He deserves to die.

He destroyed the house of the Maker.

Kill him.

KILL HIM.

KILLHIMKILLHIMKILLHIMKILLHIMKILLHIMKILLHIM

_Katrina drew her knife from her belt, a small dagger that Isabela had given her years ago. The pirate was long since gone, having left when the qunari invaded, but she had kept the dagger. It was handy, for up close and personal kills._

_Like this one._

_The Champion closed her golden eyes and took a deep breath, raising her hand, when Anders spoke again._

_"I'll always love you, Kat. I'm sorry."_

_Katrina opened her eyes in shock, looking back down at Anders's face. His eyes were closed, years of strain having caught up with him, every sorrowful emotion she knew him to be capable of and then some in his face. Expressions that were so human, so much like the Anders that she had fallen in love with, the one who was compassionate and kind to the poor. The one whose face had lighted up with joy when she had given him a kitten she had found, and the one who whispered "I love you's" after a session of heated, hateful lovemaking._

_She couldn't do it._

_She couldn't kill the man that she loved._

_Katrina's arm fell limp, her dagger falling onto the ground beside the two. She closed her eyes as her chest heaved with tears, the Champion standing up and falling back onto the box that Anders had been occupying moments before. The man sat up, staring at her in confusion. Katrina opened her eyes and glared at him, her fist sparking with electricity._

_"Just go." She hissed, tears running down her face. When Anders hesitated, she stood again, quick as a flash. "GO!"_

_Anders looked at her once again, his face scrunched in sorrow, before he stood and left._

Katrina had assumed he'd left. Why wouldn't he? But he hadn't. He had followed them, followed the mages, and she had seen him one final time before her battle with Orsino.

_"I hoped you would change your mind, Kat." _

_Katrina turned, her mouth dropping in shock. "Anders, you shouldn't - you shouldn't be here."_

_Because there he was, his black staff in his hands, his hair undone. Dark purple marks covered his face and neck - marks, she realized with horror, that she had inflicted upon him. How many times before had they hit each other? How often had they screamed hatred at each other as their fists met the other's body, later caressing those marks lovingly and admiring the wounds they had inflicted._

_"I should say the same of you." Anders glared, his amber eyes meeting her yellow ones, his hands clutching his staff. "I loved you, Kat. I still do. But I cannot let you do this."_

Katrina looked down at her hands, now devoid of the gauntlets that she had used to hit him. She had dueled him, had defeated him, she had KILLED him when she tried so hard to avoid to do so. It wasn't in good favor to kill someone you loved, after all.

But she had done so, hadn't she? Had felt him go limp in her arms, saw his eyes close for the last time?

The templars were moving the bodies of the mages that had died in battle, taking the others to be interrogated for blood magic. Katrina hadn't seen Anders's body amongst them. She wasn't sure she wanted to.

_Maker forgive me, I didn't want to kill him._

_I loved him, as much as I hated him._


End file.
